Foreign exchange exposure, accounting and rates

The Company is a global company with sales mainly outside Sweden. Sales and incurred costs are to a large extent denominated in currencies other than SEK and therefore the financial results of the Company are impacted by currency fluctuations. The Company reports the financial statements in SEK. Movements in exchange rates between currencies that affect these statements are impacting the comparability between periods.

Translation exposure

Translation exposure relates to sales and cost incurred in foreign entities when converted into SEK upon consolidation. These exposures cannot be addressed by hedging. To simplify and increase transparency a new method for translating foreign currencies to SEK is implemented starting January 2015. The translation to SEK is based on a period-by-period calculation using the closing rate from the previous month. The previous method, the so called averaging method, was abandoned 2014. Now one common method is used for both translation and transaction exposure.

Transaction exposure

Transaction exposure relates to sales and cost incurred in non-reporting currencies in individual group companies. Foreign exchange risk is as far as possible concentrated in Swedish group companies, primarily Ericsson AB. Actual transactions in foreign currencies are converted to SEK using the closing rate from the previous month.

Explanation of method for translating FX exposure into SEK for Income Statement items

Market closing rate previous month (M-rate) will be used for translating next month’s sales and costs into SEK. Example:

Market closing rate January 31 2018 will be used for transactions in February 2018

Market closing rate February 28 2018 will be used for transactions in March 2018

Hedging

In order to limit the transaction exposure toward exchange rate, fluctuations on future revenues and costs, committed and forecasted future sales and purchases in major currencies are hedged with 7% of 12-month forecast monthly. By this way, we will have hedged 84% of the next month and 7% of the 12th month of an average forecast of the individual month at any given reporting date. This corresponds to approximately 5-6 months of an average forecast.

Realization and revaluation of unrealized hedge contracts

Hedge contracts are valued at closing rate of the last day of the quarter. USD is our largest currency exposure and a rule of thumb when estimating the financial impact of revaluation of unrealized hedge contracts is: